Israel Match Thread (11/10/2018)

[er yir macaroon]

15 minutes ago, Chripper said:

I'd give up both players for a carbon copy of Davie Cooper, a player who had zero pace.

Davie Cooper was a genius and in today’s football would play in the middle of the park.

The benefit of having players with pace (especially defenders) is it allows us to set up 10 yards up the pitch. With a back four and two  centre halves we would have avoided our goal being shelled with Israeli shots from our 18 yard box every 2 minutes.  Moreover we’d pick them off on the counter attackk with our “pacy wingers”. Get your 5 at the back tae buggery. 

[Bino's]

19 minutes ago, er yir macaroon said:

Davie Cooper was a genius and in today’s football would play in the middle of the park.

The benefit of having players with pace (especially defenders) is it allows us to set up 10 yards up the pitch. With a back four and two  centre halves we would have avoided our goal being shelled with Israeli shots from our 18 yard box every 2 minutes.  Moreover we’d pick them off on the counter attackk with our “pacy wingers”. Get your 5 at the back tae buggery. 

Neither of the two mentioned could lace Davie Cooper's boots

[er yir macaroon]

31 minutes ago, Bino's said:

Neither of the two mentioned could lace Davie Cooper's boots

No argument for there. 

[Chripper]

1 hour ago, SWMM82 said:

And though still not in the same league as Davie Cooper, even wee Faddy wasn’t the paciest. He had his good moments too........

Yeah, I was going to say Faddy, too.

[RenfrewBlue]

2 hours ago, Bino's said:

There was always a high chance of negativity towards someone who had previously walked out

The purest form of hypocrisy. Anybody on here that says they would turn down a massive pay rise for a full time job, when they are still ambitious about their career, is a total liar. 

And to hold it against him is childish beyond belief. 

He may be a crap manager but judge on results not historical rubbish. 

[Bino's]

1 hour ago, RenfrewBlue said:

The purest form of hypocrisy. Anybody on here that says they would turn down a massive pay rise for a full time job, when they are still ambitious about their career, is a total liar. 

And to hold it against him is childish beyond belief. 

He may be a crap manager but judge on results not historical rubbish. 

It's just obvious that anyone who walks out on a national management job, then comes back when their career has failed

Will be treated more harshly by a section of the support, than a first time manager would be

[daviebee]

1 hour ago, RenfrewBlue said:

The purest form of hypocrisy. Anybody on here that says they would turn down a massive pay rise for a full time job, when they are still ambitious about their career, is a total liar. 

And to hold it against him is childish beyond belief. 

He may be a crap manager but judge on results not historical rubbish. 

He asked for "commitment" from the SFA at the time, saying he didn't want to be in just until the end of the group. He got that commitment and then fked off first chance he got! I don't blame anyone holding that against him. And he's a fkin dinosaur who was out of work for a reason.

[Ormond]

7 hours ago, RenfrewBlue said:

It wasn't the defence that was the problem. It was all coming from a lack of closing down further up the park. 

This made it easy for Israel to pick their passes. 

Football is a ridiculously easy game, if everyone in the team does what they're supposed to do. 

The front 5 were the basis of the problem. 

I’d totally agree with you on this. I think I may need to have a lie down! 🙈😂

[RenfrewBlue]

13 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I’d totally agree with you on this. I think I may need to have a lie down! 🙈😂

Bloody hell Ormond, even I'm worried about you now. 😉

 

[RenfrewBlue]

3 hours ago, daviebee said:

He asked for "commitment" from the SFA at the time, saying he didn't want to be in just until the end of the group. He got that commitment and then fked off first chance he got! I don't blame anyone holding that against him. And he's a fkin dinosaur who was out of work for a reason.

Boo hoo. A guy looked after himself financially. 

None of this changes the fact we'd all do the same thing. 

Your last sentence is the only one that can at least be reasonably discussed. You may be right with that. We shall soon see. 

[Ormond]

4 minutes ago, RenfrewBlue said:

Bloody hell Ormond, even I'm worried about you now. 😉

 

You used to be one of my most prized pupils on here. But then you allowed Big Ron to pull you by the wayside.

[exile]

14 hours ago, Orraloon said:

You seem to be ignoring the most obvious difference between the two games. One was at home the other was away. It has always baffled me why teams tend to get better results, and performances, at home than they do away from home. There shouldn't be that much difference really and I don't know why it should be that way. But the statistics back it up. especially for average teams like ourselves. If we could consistently win (or even draw) away from home we wouldn't be ranked where we are, and we wouldn't be playing these other average teams. We would be up with the big boys in Leagues A and B.

We will beat Israel at Hampden.

 

 

The context was: people were criticising both the manager and the team, as if the manager was useless or clueless for picking such a set of rubbish players. But they were the same players, hailed as winners in the last game, and who else could or should have been picked? 

I said 'seemingly' because I didn't see the game, so I can't tell how much they were that bad, or looked as clueless or knackered as reported.

So I was just wondering what people thought the difference was, as it seemed to be much more that could be explained by either home v away or Israel being so much better than Albania.  But maybe not...

Edited October 14, 2018 by exile

[Rolling hIlls]

7 hours ago, RenfrewBlue said:

Bloody hell Ormond, even I'm worried about you now. 😉

 

Dont worry. Its me he hates noo. Or whoever big ron is ☺

[er yir macaroon]

15 hours ago, RenfrewBlue said:

It wasn't the defence that was the problem. It was all coming from a lack of closing down further up the park. 

This made it easy for Israel to pick their passes. 

Football is a ridiculously easy game, if everyone in the team does what they're supposed to do. 

The front 5 were the basis of the problem. 

I would argue that the lack of pressing is because our players were hopelessly outnumbered in the middle of the park , as a consequence of reverting to a back 5 that was strung across our 18 yard box. Israel had all the time in the world to set up attacks because it was impossible for our midfield players to press the ball.

[Orraloon]

14 hours ago, Clyde1998 said:

Gibraltar have just beaten Armenia 1-0 away, with both their full backs playing in the ninth tier in England. Armenia are only six places behind Israel in the FIFA rankings.

Tells it's own story about how bad the result was on Thursday.

Fantastic result for Gibraltar. This is what the Nations League is all about.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Just back from Israel.

Why does our manager play a back 5 when not one of the back 5 he selected plays in a back 5 for their club?

[TDYER63]

23 hours ago, Ormond said:

Aye, fantastic conditions for you to go on a Jager fest I seen with my mucker after the gemme ya wee Jakey. 😄 

He was telling me yesterday.

😬,  unfortunately Carlsberg lager was nowhere near strong enough to blot out the pain of that game.  

I blame @G-Man who has buggered off to a kibbutz to repent for her sins 😗

[ScotlandWintheWorldCup]

On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 8:06 AM, bazmidd said:

This whole chat we are having now about different formations and systems all stems from how we bring our players through and the way we teach them to play football. We really shouldn't even be having this argument as everyone should know the way Scotland play our style and formations. At the present time this is evident only in our youth sides who have been completely revamped and taught to play in a certain style and to play in a certain way. They don't change for anyone. Against Spain, England, France, Holland whoever it is 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. They pass the ball the play on the front foot, they are in the faces of the opposition. We are trying to introduce our style through our youth teams now playing in this way. Formations aren't even discussed at youth level, they just know it will be 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 and they know exactly what their job is and how they are expected to play. So with this style and identity being introduced in our youth sides, it is absolutely criminal the senior side are doing the complete opposite. What the hell are these young players we are teaching to do one thing meant to think when they do excellent things playing this way at youth level, taught for years this is now the Scotland Way, only to come into the seniors and everything is arse for tit, and the manager at the top doesn't even have a scooby doo what formation or system he's playing. Spain have a style, Holland have a Style Germany have a Style, Croatia have a style, why the hell do we change what our youth sides do when we get to senior level! It shouldn't even be a discussion. Okay all formations can be tweaked etc but to completely deviate away from the way we are teaching our youth sides to play football is just insane especially when right now we have a team with 5 or 6 U21 players who could potentially start for the national team. We have to trust in the style and systems we have introduced at youth level and implement them at seniors or what is the point in any of the structure we have built up in recent years at youth level. Things have improved massively from U17s to U21s it is actually great watching these Scotland sides play. Ok we don't win every game but you know what you are going to get. They try and attack, play the right way play with heart. We are teaching these guys these things so they will in turn play that way for Scotland in future. So keep the seniors completely in line with what they are doing at youth level and trust in what we are doing or nothing will ever change for the better

Totally agree.  Being involved at grassroots level football, there has been a real change of emphasis on how the young players are taught.  It is all passing and movement, pressing the opposition and giving the ball away by lumping up the pitch is heavily discouraged.  Plus players are now taught about proper fitness and nutrition.

I think this was all started about 10 years ago, so it does take time to see the changes at elite level. But we are already seeing the changes at u17,u21 as you say.  Should be a bright future for Scotland.  Just one or two gloomy years left?  Qatar has warm/hot weather in November, the perfect place to take in 7 games during the Scottish winter!  As long as you avoid the raspberry flavour beer.

[ScotlandWintheWorldCup]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 6:55 PM, Chripper said:

Without a shadow of a doubt we should be playing 3-5-2, and we should have been doing so for the past 20 years. In my time I can only remember Scotland qualifying for two tournaments (Euro 96 and France 98), with both we played with a three at the back system. Why? Because we haven't had a solid pairing of central defenders since the 80's. Scotland have produced decent defenders in the past twenty years, but nothing top drawer, with the obvious exception of Colin Hendry. 

 

 

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 6:55 PM, Chripper said:

It's not all doom and gloom, we have the foundation of McKenna, Robertson, Tierney and McGinn to build on, and with kids like Johnstone, Middleton, Bates, Morgan, Gilmour and Porteous coming through, things do look a little bit sunnier.

 

The main strength we had under Craig Brown's leadership is that we were organized, we were compact, we were like a club side, in that they worked tirelessly for one another. With the 3-5-2 we had eight players down the middle of the park which made it difficult for teams to tear us apart. Like I said, strength in numbers.

I don't remember us sticking rigidly to a 3-5-2, we played a back 4 a lot at that time too.  Plus McLeish's formation was 3-5-2 but the two wing backs don't contribute much to the midfield so its more a 3-2-3-2, which is a very narrow formation.  I think the Great Craig Brown played a 5-3-2.  The back 5 played across the backline, plus a defensive mdfielder, i'm ok with that but it is very defensive, good for away games I guess.

So the difference is McLeish was a back 3, Brown was a back 5.  Big difference.

 

Plus I agree its not all doom and gloom, don't forget about Harry Cocharne as well.

[Chripper]

54 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

 

I don't remember us sticking rigidly to a 3-5-2, we played a back 4 a lot at that time too.  Plus McLeish's formation was 3-5-2 but the two wing backs don't contribute much to the midfield so its more a 3-2-3-2, which is a very narrow formation.  I think the Great Craig Brown played a 5-3-2.  The back 5 played across the backline, plus a defensive mdfielder, i'm ok with that but it is very defensive, good for away games I guess.

So the difference is McLeish was a back 3, Brown was a back 5.  Big difference.

 

Plus I agree its not all doom and gloom, don't forget about Harry Cocharne as well.

Then you're remembering wrong. Home and away we played with 3-5-2 from 1993 to 2001 (with tactical variations). Do you remember the European Championships play off matches against England? More specially the match at Wembley? For the last 30 minutes David Beckham was pretty much playing as a right back as he was being pushed back by our left wing back so much.

Hell, I still have the matches on VHS.

I found an interesting article from '99:

"he (Brown)  readily admitted that Scotland's customary 3-5-2 formation was modelled on the German system."

It was a 5 when we were defending, but it sprung into a 3 when we were attacking.

Yeah, Cochrane is a smashing player, too bad he's been pushed out of the picture by so many Hearts signings.

[Marky]

20 hours ago, RenfrewBlue said:

It wasn't the defence that was the problem. It was all coming from a lack of closing down further up the park. 

This made it easy for Israel to pick their passes. 

Football is a ridiculously easy game, if everyone in the team does what they're supposed to do. 

The front 5 were the basis of the problem. 

I agree with your first sentence RB but maybe for slightly different reasons. 

We are crap at defending and always have been. Even back in the halcyon days when we had arguably world class defenders we were always contriving to fook up in some hilarious fashion.

In my opinion, Scotland teams have always been at their best when taking the game to the opposition. The old “attack is the best form of defence” mentality. 

In the past when we had great midfielders and strikers, that mentality stood us in good stead. 

In recent years, whilst that philosophy was still evident in our best performances, we have suffered from a combination of poor execution of the final ball or just good old fashioned poor finishing.

However, what was evident on Friday for me, was that for the first time I can remember, when we got to the middle of the park, there was absolutely zero movement in the final third. We couldn’t poorly execute the final ball because there was no final ball to play. For me it was the most non existent attacking game we have ever played and that includes the game we played without any strikers!!

So inevitably we would just lose possession and invite more pressure on our defence.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it’s the worst Scotland performance I’ve seen and my memory stretches back to 1973.

[RenfrewBlue]

5 hours ago, er yir macaroon said:

I would argue that the lack of pressing is because our players were hopelessly outnumbered in the middle of the park , as a consequence of reverting to a back 5 that was strung across our 18 yard box. Israel had all the time in the world to set up attacks because it was impossible for our midfield players to press the ball.

Both teams played the same formation. How can we be outnumbered unless people aren't doing their basic job? 

If we were outnumbered in the middle it proves my point that we weren't pressing properly. 

[RenfrewBlue]

57 minutes ago, Marky said:

I agree with your first sentence RB but maybe for slightly different reasons. 

We are crap at defending and always have been. Even back in the halcyon days when we had arguably world class defenders we were always contriving to fook up in some hilarious fashion.

In my opinion, Scotland teams have always been at their best when taking the game to the opposition. The old “attack is the best form of defence” mentality. 

In the past when we had great midfielders and strikers, that mentality stood us in good stead. 

In recent years, whilst that philosophy was still evident in our best performances, we have suffered from a combination of poor execution of the final ball or just good old fashioned poor finishing.

However, what was evident on Friday for me, was that for the first time I can remember, when we got to the middle of the park, there was absolutely zero movement in the final third. We couldn’t poorly execute the final ball because there was no final ball to play. For me it was the most non existent attacking game we have ever played and that includes the game we played without any strikers!!

So inevitably we would just lose possession and invite more pressure on our defence.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it’s the worst Scotland performance I’ve seen and my memory stretches back to 1973.

I haven't seen it, only listened on Radio Scotland which was painful enough. 

I didn't feel that the performance even made the Top 10 Worst (apologies to the English language for that sentence). 

However the ones that do stick out Peru and Iran in 78, Costa Rica in 90 etc. were all games that I watched, so maybe that's part of why it didn't seem so bad to me. 

[er yir macaroon]

2 hours ago, Chripper said:

Then you're remembering wrong. Home and away we played with 3-5-2 from 1993 to 2001 (with tactical variations). Do you remember the European Championships play off matches against England? More specially the match at Wembley? For the last 30 minutes David Beckham was pretty much playing as a right back as he was being pushed back by our left wing back so much.

Hell, I still have the matches on VHS.

I found an interesting article from '99:

"he (Brown)  readily admitted that Scotland's customary 3-5-2 formation was modelled on the German system."

It was a 5 when we were defending, but it sprung into a 3 when we were attacking.

Yeah, Cochrane is a smashing player, too bad he's been pushed out of the picture by so many Hearts signings.

Cochrane is injured.

[er yir macaroon]

32 minutes ago, RenfrewBlue said:

Both teams played the same formation. How can we be outnumbered unless people aren't doing their basic job? 

If we were outnumbered in the middle it proves my point that we weren't pressing properly. 

Hang on, it seems you didn’t see the game. We were outnumbered in midfield because our wing backs weren’t in it.